It’s been almost a month since Andy and I had our first bout of COVID, and we still have coughs and regular stretches of sheer exhaustion. If I so much as sit down briefly in our comfy green chair, and allow my head to go to the side, I will promptly fall asleep in a matter of minutes. I don’t dare to lie down on a bed unless I want to throw away the next ten hours. It has slowed everything down, but the start of this September is so hot and humid, it feels right to slow down. 

The mornings have so far remained momentarily cool, allowing for a cup of matcha to jumpstart the day, and stave off immediate exhaustion when at the office. I haven’t had matcha since early spring, when this sort of heat and humidity was a welcome dream. Time changes everything. 

Normally one to shy away from the full moon for fear of lunacy and other mishaps that too often coincide with its appearance, I felt drawn to the Super Blue Moon that visited on August 30, and managed to capture a coupe of photos before it hid behind a bank of clouds. Maybe the trick to dealing with the madness of a full moon is to embrace it – to stand outside beneath its glory and appreciate its beauty rather than hiding away from its power and might. Perhaps there is a way to harness its energy and not fear its pull. 

On that night, I kept checking on its progress until I found it peeping around the infuriating cloud cover. It was enough – and beneath its blue glow I felt a peace I hadn’t felt in a long while. A moon’s kiss is a magical gift. On with the weekly recap back on earth… 

Summer still burned, even if my mood didn’t quite match its smolder.

There was fog, and perhaps a phantom pheasant.

A possible explanation to the fury and the madness.

A cheeky full-moon post that somehow revealed more than my bare ass.

Nuance is all but lost in today’s world. 

August departing.

September arriving.

Ferny freshness.

Down with the dumpster fire that is Twitter, err, X.

Climbing and vining before the season is done.

Dazzlers of the Day included Trevor Wayne, Donna Murphy, Nick Vannello, Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish.

Does anybody bother with Twitter, I mean X, anymore? 

It’s just a dumpster fire now. 

This is what I got when I tried to post a link to this fabulous blog there the other day:

After this month, I fear every other August to come will never be the same. The month that once held the happiness of a birthday and the last completely full month of summer is now the month in which we lost Dad, the month we got COVID, and the month in which so much joy drained from my world. Still, finding myself at the end of this wretched month, I am suddenly hit with a hesitancy to let it all go just like that. Even amid the sorrowful events that happened, there was beauty here – beauty in every one of those transitions. So much hurt, and so much love, and so much life in the middle of loss. My tears fell as much for sadness as they did for gratitude. 

It might be easy to slip into a state of bitterness and anger, and I might have an understandable right to delve into those darkened rooms. Perhaps those moments are on the horizon, but so far I’ve taken the sting out of that downward spiral, trying to be still and quiet, trying to take it all in as it comes – waves of grief, waves of calm, waves of sorrow, waves of hope, waves of comfort – and without any sort of pride in it, I feel I am handling the days as best as one might. 

This month will be one that haunts me for quite some time, and I find an odd reassurance in that. It will become part of the tapestry that makes up my lifeline here on earth – the threads of this August will be forever wound and bound into the richness of life that has revealed itself to me these last few weeks. There is meaning and purpose and beauty in our saddest days; I am choosing to believe that, and choosing to carry that beauty with me going forward.

Perhaps this cunt-ridden post was a bit too much. 

I can acknowledge that. 

And I can admit to a certain degree of bitterness and anger in all the days and weeks that led up to such an outpouring of unfettered and unchecked emotion. 

Today, I can pause and take a calmer look at how things got to such a head. Under normal circumstances, I am acutely aware of things like full moons and Mercury in retrograde motion, because they tend to disrupt daily living in tumultuous ways, wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting and unprepared among us. Given all that has transpired over the past month, I largely stopped paying attention to dates and signs and astrological movements, and so I was completely unaware that Mercury had shifted into apparent retrograde motion on August 23. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have taken all the shit the world dumped on me so personally, or been cornered into such a vitriolic delivery of release. 

As is so often the case, if I know what’s happening and I’m given a script or at least some rough stage directions and background, I can find my way without making a huge commotion or mess. Only when I’m kept in the dark about such things do I manage to so spectacularly fuck things up. So this one is partly on me for not going with the punches, and partly on everyone who just had to challenge me. 

Whenever there is a full moon, I have learned to pause and breathe – to stop myself before going on a rampage or an attack – and really looking at whatever I’m upset about. If it’s not going to change anything in the grand scheme of things, there’s a good chance it’s not worth dredging up like so much pond scum at the bottom of a water-lily-laden scene. It doesn’t always work – sometimes a person can only take so much before they can’t take anything more – and sometimes I still lose my cool. But when the truth comes out, when it all gets laid on the table and examined by everyone involved, I’m not usually in the wrong. My delivery may be outrageous, but the sentiment behind it is rarely without merit. 

And so I let the dust settle, and hope that we don’t get so riled up the next time around.